On This Day in Murder... April 26th, 1913

The Brutal Murder of Little Mary Phagan

Mary Phagan, photo taken shortly before her death

WARNING! There are graphic photos included at the very end of this post!

This is a story about the shocking and tragic murder of a 13-year-old girl who was beloved by a community, but it is about even more than that; it's also a story about accusations, lies, threats, rage, innocence, and vigilante justice.

Mary Ann Phagan, known affectionately as "Little Mary" was born in June of 1899 in Alabama. Her father passed away in 1900, before Mary was even a year old, and her family moved back to Marietta, Georgia, where they were originally from. Mary had a fairly large family; her mother remarried shortly after their move back to Georgia, so in addition to her 4 older siblings, Mary also had 5 younger half-siblings as well. Unfortunately, that move back would prove to be fatal for Mary, when she was found murdered 99 years ago on this day.

Mary Phagan (right) with her older sister Ollie, approximately 1903 (photo courtesy of Michael McKinney; from the personal photo collection of Rebecca "Rebie" Lutz McCollum)

It was noon on Saturday, April 26th, 1913 when Mary Phagan, only 13 years old, went to pick up her wages from the National Pencil Company factory in Marietta, where she had been working. Having been discharged from the factory earlier in the week, these were to be her final wages. Unfortunately, that was the last time she was seen alive; she never made it home again. Mary was found brutally murdered in the basement of the National Pencil Company's factory the next morning. Her head had been struck with a hard, blunt object, and she had been strangled. Two notes, purportedly crudely written by Mary Phagan herself prior to succumbing to her death, identified the killer culprit as a black man who worked in the factory.

The scene of the crime: the National Pencil Co. factory where Mary worked & was found murdered.

The town was understandably in the an uproar after Mary Phagan's body was found. Suspicions, rumours and accusations started immediately. There was a coroner's inquest launched right away, and the fact that it was murder was obvious. Suspects were easy enough to round up; the scene of the crime itself gave the investigators the answer as to who could have done it. The boys and men who worked at the factory were immediately brought in for questioning, including Leo M. Frank, the Jewish superintendent of the factory, and James Conley, a black man who worked as a sweeper in the factory.

Mary Phagan's family at her funeral

The police needed to solve this case, and they needed to do it quickly. People in the community would not settle for anything less; this horrible, evil killer must be caught right away, and he must be punished severely for his crime. Leo Frank, when questioned, stated that he had seen Mary that day. She came in to the factory to collect her final wages, up this office on the third floor where he was alone. He said that he paid her the wages owed, and she left. He worked for the rest of the day, leaving only to go out for lunch, and then spent the evening at home with his family.

James Conley gave a much different story (with many different variations) to the police when he was questioned; he admitted he was at the factory that day, but he claimed that he was asked by Leo Frank to assist him in moving Mary Phagan's dead body from the third floor of the factory to the basement while he was there, after Frank had killed her. He also claimed that Leo forced him to write the notes that were found beside Mary's body. When all was said and done, Conley's story was believed, and Frank's was not. Leo Frank was charged with Mary Phagan's murder, and James Conley was set to be a star witness for the prosecution. A wave of antisemitism fell over the town, everyone seeming to believe immediately that Frank was guilty. The sentiment of the masses, both thought and spoken aloud throughout the trial was "kill the Jew!".

Leo Frank & his wife listening to testimony during his trial

On July 28th, 1913, Leo Frank went on trial for the murder of Mary Phagan. During the murder trial, testimony was heard from both defense and prosecution witnesses who had worked at the factory with Leo and Mary. Some of it was complimentary to Leo and his character, but unfortunately for Mr. Frank, most of it was damning and painted him as a pervert and villain, even the witnesses called by the defense. The defense called nearly 100 factory workers to the stand to prove the good character of Mr. Frank. In some cases, their plan backfired.  One girl put on the stand to testify to the good, upstanding character of Leo Frank instead testified that Frank often looked into the women's dressing room when employees were changing, and that the women were afraid of him. Another girl stated dramatically that she would die for Frank.

The prosecution, for their part, presented witnesses and evidence with the intent to prove that Leo Frank had been with Mary that day, and therefore had not only the opportunity to commit the crime, but that he was also known as a deviant, creepy man, who scared the women and girls who worked for him, and had a history of immoral conduct; he must therefore have been the one who killed Mary Phagan. The crux of their case relied immensely on the testimony of James Conley though; without him, they really had no case against Leo Frank at all.

Frank's defense strategy was simple; he was a decent upstanding citizen of good character, and he didn't murder Mary; James Conley, the man who was employed as a sweeper in the factory, and the person who had initially implicated him in the crime was the real person responsible for her demise. The women and girls who worked in the factory did not only have damning comments to make about Leo, but also about Jim, who had a bad reputation, as the witnesses would testify. Not only that, but witnesses that flat out contradicted various aspects of Conley's story were brought to the stand on behalf of the defense, and their testimony showed that James Conley was a liar, and was considered strong evidence of Frank's innocence.

A photo of the courtroom during Leo Frank's murder trial

Both sides having presented their cases, it would seem that once again, despite the inconsistencies and outright lies that had been told by James Conley, his story was believed. On August 25th, 1913, nearly 4 months to the day having passed since she was killed, Leo M. Frank was found guilty of the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan, and was sentenced to death.

After numerous failed appeals of his conviction and death sentence, Frank finally received some good news on June 21st, 1915; his sentence had been commuted from death to life imprisonment. It wasn't an acquittal or a new trial, but at least it meant that Leo Frank would not hang for murder. It meant that he would be able to live and fight to prove his innocence, or so he must have thought.

The fact that Leo Frank had been convicted of murder was not enough for the community. Filled with rage over the murder of the beloved young girl, the only acceptable sentence was death, and if the court would not carry it out, the citizens would do so on their own. On August 16th, 1915, Leo Frank was taken by force from the state prison where he was serving his life sentence by a large group of armed men, and by the following morning, Leo Frank had been hanged. The men called themselves "The Knights of Mary Phagan". No one was ever arrested or charged with his lynching, despite the identities of the purportedly 75 men in the lynch mob being common knowledge. Photos of Leo Frank's lynching can be viewed below at the end of this post.

That is not quite the end of the story though. In 1982, a man who nearly 70 years earlier had testified against Leo Franks during the trial, came forward to change his story. At the time of Mary's murder and during the subsequent trial, Alonzo Mann was a scared fourteen year old boy. He said that he had seen the real killer carrying Mary Phagan's body to the basement on the day of her murder, but unfortunately, the murderer also saw him, and threatened to kill him as well if he ever told anyone. The man that Alonzo Mann claims he saw carrying Mary's body that day was James Conley. Conley had passed away twenty years earlier in 1962.

Mary Phagan's murder and the lynching of Leo Frank have been credited as not only the driving force behind the formation of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, but also instrumental in the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia, said to have re-emerged from The Knights of Mary Phagan.

Alonzo Mann, who came forward nearly 70 years after Mary's murder

WARNING: GRAPHIC PHOTOS OF THE LYNCHING OF LEO FRANK CAN BE SEEN BELOW, PROCEED AT OWN DISCRETION!

On This Day in Murder... April 11th, 1921

Russell Campbell is Shot to Death Trying to Stop Bank Robbers

James Russell Campbell was born March 2nd, 1887 to John Donald Campbell and Elizabeth Markle in Ekfrid, near London, Ontario. He served in the army, and worked as an electrician. He was 34 at the time of his death, unmarried and without children.

Sidney Ernest Murrell, and his brother William George Murrell were both born in England in 1900 and 1898 respectively, to William & Mabel Murrell. The family moved to Canada in 1906. Both of the brothers and their father served in the army. Their father would claim afterward that it changed them; that you can't expect to tell a man it is okay to kill one day, and then expect him to come back home and tell him it isn't okay. Sidney & William made some sketchy friends when they came back; it is with two of those friends, Jack Henry "Slim" Williams and Pat Norton, that their world would collide with Russell Campbell, and his life would tragically end.

On April 11th, 1921, in Melbourne, Ontario, Sidney, William Slim & Pat set out to rob the Home bank. Sidney the purportedly ring leaders of this pack of bandits. While inside, the alarm is sounded, and a number of villagers arrive in an attempt to intercept the bank robbers before they can escape. A number of bullets are fired in the bank at the ceiling, and then the bandits try to make a getaway.  Amongst the villagers trying to capture the villains were Stuart, Robert & Russell Campbell.  More shots were fired; some by the villagers, some by the bandits. There is a scuffle, the men fight, but the villagers prevail, and three of the four men are caught, and tied to telephone poles with rope to await the arrival of police. Sidney, William & Slim were in a lot of trouble, and not only for the bank robbery. The fourth man, Pat Norton, got away. He would never again be seen, or apprehended by police to face punishment, though they searched for him for years.

Photo of the captured Sidney Murrell, awaiting arrival of police

Although most of the bandits didn't escape and the bank robbery was foiled, the villagers victory was bittersweet; laying in the alleyway by the bank, lay the body of Russell Campbell, who had been shot and killed during the melee of the robbery and apprehension. His death registration records lists his cause of death as "internal hemorrhage caused by being shot by a burglar", and notes it was an "instant death".

Death Registration Record for Russell Campbell

It didn't take long after they were put in jail before they started causing trouble. Sidney and William apparently tried to burn the jail they were being held with in May. After that, they apparently displayed excellent behaviour; undoubtedly trying not to raise suspicion, and it seemed to work. On September 2nd, 1921, Sidney and William Murrell, using a handsaw that was somehow smuggled into the jail, sawed the bars off their cell, vaulted over a wall, and escaped. Their bank robber accomplice, Slim Williams, remained behind, left alone to be punished for the robbery and murder.

It was almost 2 years later, in May 1923, when the news broke that Sidney Murrell had been apprehended in California. It turns out that he had been picked up on an auto theft charge, using the alias "Robert W. Brooks". The police in California had distributed his fingerprints to other law enforcement agencies in an attempt to find out if he had a criminal record; that was how the Canadian authorities identified him as Sidney Ernest Murrell, wanted for bank robbery and murder.

Sidney and Slim were finally put on trial, and 33 witnesses were called to testify. They reported seeing the men with guns, trying to escape, and 3 women said that the two men they saw running out of the alley where Russell Campbell was found dead were Sidney Murrell and Slim Williams. No one actually saw either man shoot Russell. It was on this piece of the evidence the defense focused, arguing that any of the shots that the villagers themselves had fired at the bandits could very well have been the fatal shot that hit Campbell. The verdict was not what either man wanted to hear; guilty of murder, and both sentenced to hang on April 10th, 1924, nearly 3 years to the day of Russell Campbell's death.  

When that day came, two executions would take place, but only man would pay with his life for the death of Campbell. The day before the execution Jack Henry "Slim" Williams would receive word that his execution was commuted to life inprisonment. On April 10th, Sidney Ernest Murrell would walk instead with Clarence Topping to the scaffold to face their deaths. Topping was sentenced to hang for the shooting death of his sweetheart Geraldine Durston in November of 1923. Sidney's last words reportedly were, "My time has come to part with this world. Good luck and God bless you". The cord was pulled, and Murrell and Topping were together hanged at 5:30am. It was reported they spent the night beforehand signing hymns and offering prayers of repose for their souls with Rev. Mr. Warner, and Slim Williams. Sidney said he had no confession to make, that he did feel remorseful, but only for the worry and anxiety he caused his family.

Death Registration Record for Sidney Ernest Murrell

After Sidney was hanged, the Murrell family was struck with even more tragedy; in 1926, their 16 year old son Thomas was killed in an automobile accident, and another son drowned around the same time.

What happened to William? Well, a story similar to that of Sidney would play out for him, with one big difference. In January of 1928, he was also caught in California, picked up for an auto theft charge using the alias "Cecil Chester Miller" and identified in the same manner. He had absolutely no idea that his brother had been caught and executed nearly 4 years earlier, and was apparently very upset at the news. He also faced trial for Russell Campbell's murder, and his father expressed his anger at the fact that one son had already been found guilty and hanged, it wasn't fair to also charge his namesake for the same murder. His father said, "Isn't one life enough to take? A cannibal kills only what he can eat, we kill what we cannot even use".  William was also found guilty and sentenced to hang for his crime. Unlike his brother Sidney however, he was granted a commutation to life in prison, and would not see the gallows. He was eventually let out of prison, and lived a quiet life in London, Ontario after he was released. He died February 8th, 1958. He was found slumped over the wheel of his vehicle after a grocery shopping trip by a police officer; he had died of a heart attack.

On This Day in Murder... April 1st, 1935

Tyrell Tilford is Poisoned by his Wife, Who Went on to Become the First Woman Executed in Canada in 62 Years

Mrs. Elizabeth Ann Tilford

 

When 35 year old Tyrell Tilford passed away in his home on April 1st, 1935, his death was initially attributed to 'myocarditis', which is the inflammation of heart muscle, which he had been suffering from for some time. His death registration also noted that contributory causes were the flu, and catarrhal jaundice, which is more commonly known as hepatitis A.

Death Registration Record for Tyrell Tilford

Tyrell Tilford was born November 10th, 1899 in Shardlow, Derbyshire, England, the 2nd youngest of 15 children born to James William Tilford & Mary Butcher. He first came to Canada in 1919, arriving in New Brunswick at the age of 20, with his sixteen year old sister Alice. In 1926, some of their family would come to join them in Canada; siblings, nieces and nephews, and also their parents.

At the time of his death Tyrell, a teamster, was living at 37 Cronyn St. in Woodstock, Ontario with his wife of five years, Elizabeth Ann, who was almost 20 years older than he. After he passed away, it wasn't long before the rumours about his death started, and it would seem for good reason; this was not the first time that Elizabeth Tilford, mother of nine children, had been married, or for that matter had become a widow - it was, in fact, the third time.

Grave of Tyrell Tilford, buried with his parents, in Woodstock (rootsweb)

Though three dead husband's does not a murderer make; it could not have helped her case any, especially coupled with the rumours that started before he was even dead; mostly stories that she was a bit too 'friendly' with other men. Other rumours that swirled around were of strange comments made by Elizabeth prior to his death; she had been complaining that she no longer received the widow's allowance from her previous husband's demise, and that she had inquired about the amount of insurance on her husband about six weeks before his death. She was also accused of making comments to another woman about how she could get "rid of" her husband - with poison.  The rumours came from somewhat unreliable sources (the woman who testified that she made that comment was a notorious gossip and busybody, and in fact the conversation had taken place before Elizabeth and Tyrell were married), yet they seemed hard to just ignore.

Three dead husbands by the time she was 55 years old; was it just bad luck, or was there something more sinister behind Elizabeth's tragic life story? Despite not much more than rumours and circumstantial evidence, the police believed the later. It was reportedly a phone call to police by a neighbour, who said that Elizabeth has called her after Tyrell's death, and asked her not to mention to anyone that she purchased arsenic, that convinced police to take another look at the circumstances of her husband's death. Tyrell Tilford's body was exhumed secretively during the night on April 25th, less than a month after his death. Analysis of the contents of his stomach revealed trace amounts of arsenic. On June 6th, 1935, police officially announced that there was an inquest into his death, and by June 11th, they had officially charged Elizabeth Tilford with the murder of her husband.

Another photo of Elizabeth Tilford

Though I have been unable to confirm all of these facts, her story was reported as follows:
Elizabeth Tilford was born Elizabeth Ann Kaye in 1879 in Yorkshire, England, and married her first husband, Fred Yaxley, at the age of fifteen, in approximately 1894. She said she married him after "a challenge from an older woman"; he left her for another woman 6 months later. She admits that she did not get a divorce prior to marrying her cousin, William Walker in 1911. Fred passed away sometime after she had remarried. It is with her second husband that she first came to Canada in 1928. Unfortunately, shortly they arrived, William went blind, and was unable to work. He passed away in 1929. She then met Tyrell Tilford, who was to become her 3rd and final husband, in Woodstock, where they both sang in the same choir. Tyrell came from an honourable and well respected family, though some sources mentioned that he was not a very ambitious or bright man.

The more police learned about Elizabeth, the more suspicious they became.  On June 14th, 1935, the body of William Walker, Elizabeth's 2nd husband, was exhumed from the Baptist Cemetery in Woodstock, on special order by the Ontario Attorney General's Department. When he had passed in away in 1929, his cause of death was certified as a brain tumor. Police were now suspicious of his death as well, so his organs were removed and taken to Toronto for analysis, and he was re-interred. No poison was found in his system, though that didn't convince many people in town that he wasn't indeed murdered.

Death Registration record for William Walker, Elizabeth's 2nd husband.

When she went on trial that all, Elizabeth did not have a lot to say in her own defense; in fact, not one witness was called to testify on her behalf. Instead, the entirety of her defense relied on convincing the jury that Tyrell Tilford had poisoned himself, possibly unintentionally, as he was apparently taking a medicine, for his already ill health, that contained some arsenic. The defense claimed that the arsenic that was found in his body was not enough to have killed him, and that it might only have contributed to his delusional state of mind before he passed from natural causes. A delusional state in which he was said to have made some damning claims against his wife to members of his family, including that she was trying to poison him.

Eleven witnesses were called to testify against her, including those members of Tyrell's family who claimed he had made comments about his wife wanting him dead, and expressed worry over being poisoned. The prosecution attempted to paint a picture of Elizabeth as a cold-hearted, manipulative, gold-digging murderess. They were seemingly successful; on October 2nd, after six hours of deliberation, Elizabeth Ann Tilford was convicted of capital murder in the poisoning death of her husband Tyrell Tilford. The conviction came with an automatic sentence of death; the jury did not recommend mercy.

Still proclaiming her innocence, Elizabeth Tilford appealed her conviction to no avail, seeking a new trial, or better yet, clemency. When informed that her final appeal had been denied, Tilford reportedly said in a message to her lawyer, "It's better to go innocent than to stay here guilty". While she waited for her death sentence to be carried out, Tilford was said to able to hear the scaffold to be used for the hanging being erected outside in the courtyard of the jail below her cell.

Elizabeth Ann Kaye-Yaxley-Walker-Tilford was judicially hanged at 1am on December 17th, 1935 in the Woodstock County jailyard. She was the first woman to be hanged in Canada in 62 years, and she maintained her innocence until the very end. None of her family were present at the hanging. She was said to have appeared very weak, was noticeably trembling, and was close to collapse as she walked up the scaffold in the falling snow to meet her fate. A small funeral and burial at Woodstock's Baptist Cemetery, with 13 people in attendance including some members of the press and a prison matron, followed her hanging.

Death Registration Record for Elizabeth Ann Tilford

Grave of Elizabeth Ann Tilford, Baptist Cemetery, Woodstock (rootsweb)